Adios Cartagena!
We are finally leaving today – everything is now in full working order and we are able to leave Ferroalquimar – I might even shed a tear at leaving all the dirt and dust behind; this shipyard now feels like my second home!
It might say welcome to Ferroalquimar on the entrance sign but believe you me, we can’t wait to say goodbye! We got put into the water almost two weeks ago! We have also been held up with trying to get our exit papers. The first Agent we had stuffed up our extension last week, then we got penalised for that and then she stuffed up the penalty payment, so that only gave us even more problems.
We spent the morning in Customs on Wednesday and the afternoon back there yesterday. On Wednesday they said it would take 5 to 10 days (had to whisper to Geoff to keep calm as we were at their mercy after all!), then it went to 3 to 5 days. After yesterday’s visit they said tomorrow! Well tomorrow is today, so here’s hoping. They now have our passports to get stamped so we are certainly in their hands at the moment.
We’ve had to re-jig our itinerary now as we’ve lost a few days and can’t afford to get behind on our schedule with various friends and family all booked and arriving at different cities along the way. We are now heading to Livingston in Guatemala, an old fishing town inaccessible by land from the outside world. Livingston has a Garifuna heritage and its culture is descended from the intermarriage of African slaves with Caribbean indigenous people and is unique to the Central American coast.
We will sail from there up the Rio Dulce (Sweet River) for about 6 miles through a gorge of 300 foot limestone cliffs into the jungle full of teak, palms and mahogany trees, howler monkeys, toucans, hot sulphur springs and wild orchids and other flowers in a multitude of colours – sounds like a gardener’s delight to me. The river then opens into a 10 mile long narrow lake called El Golfete where there are marinas and resorts. I think we are in for a real treat here and I’m very excited about it.
We’ve bought all the flags for our future destinations and we are ready to finally get this trip underway. It’s about a 4 day sail so you’ll hear from me when I am in orchid heaven!
Off we sail into the sunset!